Their is an increasing tendency among shotgun users to recover their spent shells and reload them on their own. To a large degree, the reasoning behind this propensity to self load old shells is simply financial, as the cost of reloading spent shells is roughly half the cost of a new shell and as a shell can often be retired approximately ten or more times. However, many shot gun enthusiasts also feel a certain internal gratification from reloading their own shells. While some will insist that the specific powder charge and shot count ratios available with self loading techniques and apparatus are more suitable to individual shooters, mostly all will confess that the very act of reloading a shotgun shell seems like a sportsman type of feat in and of itself.
The actual reloading of a spent shotgun shell or casing is a rather tedious process which entails numerous steps. These include resizing the brass or steel base portion of the shell so that it fits properly into the magazine chamber of a shotgun, discharging the old primer, inserting a new primer, filling the shell with a powder charge, lightly pressurizing the powder with a wad packing, filling the shell with a desired shot count, and crimping the top portion of the shell.
In order to facilitate this reloading process, numerous machines which provide varying degrees of automation have been invented. Often times, these shell reloading machines have been modified with various types of attachments to provide improved means for discharging the shot or powder to the shells, for feeding the primers to the shells, or for placing the shells in the machine. The Ponsness U.S. Pat. No. 3,320,848 disclose a primer cap feeder for a shell reloading machine, comprising, a cap holder tilted to gravity feed the primer caps, a chute communicating with the cap holder, and a cap feeder block. A pusher device which removes a spent primer cap and opens a slot for reception of the leading primer cap in the chute is also included as part of the Ponsness disclosure.
In his U.S. Pat. No. 3,610,090, Corcoran teaches a casing feeding apparatus for a reloading press having a stationary tool-holding head at the top of a central column and a coaxial work-holding slide carrying a turntable for properly and successively positioning casings underneath the tools positioned in the stationary head. The casing feed mechanism includes a feed tube having a throat which holds a number of casings in an end-to-end array. Upon movement of the work-holding slide, a spring-loaded plunger and detent ball mechanism releases to allow the lowest casing to gravity discharge into loading position on the turntable.
A problem with shell feeding devices which require placement of the casings or shells down through a feed tube, as does the Corcoran invention, is that the amount of shells which can be stacked one on top of the other in the tube is limited, and that operation of the reloading machine will cease when the relatively small supply of casings in the tube is exhausted. Furthermore, having to individually place the casings in the feed tube is a time consuming process that minimizes the benefit of the having the feeding device in the first place.
In response to this problem, a number of shell hopper devices in which a large number of spent casings may be placed before being automatically introduced in the proper orientation into a vertically oriented feed tube have been invented. The U.S. Pat. No. 3,659,492 issued to Fullmer teaches such an attachment. The Fullmer device includes an open, cylindrical, and inclined top hopper having a discharge port in the highest point of its lower base portion which leads to a substantially vertical feed tube. Shells are introduced into the discharge port by a rotatable plate disposed within the hopper and turned by a motor, the action of which is automatically interrupted when too many shells accumulate in the feed tube.
The Meacham U.S. Pat. No. 4,158,321 describes another casing feeder which comprises a hopper mounted to a loading tube by means of a depending sleeve and support cone. In the center of its base, the hopper has an opening slightly larger than a casing rim so that, since the center of gravity of a horizontally positioned shell is very close to its rim, the shells will tip into the opening rim-end first. The tube and hopper are maintained in an upright alignment by a tube support collar which is connected to one of the reciprocating links of the shell reloader. The vibration of the machine travels through the linkage and agitates the hopper so as to cause the shells to migrate toward the central opening. Another hopper attachment for a reloading machine which properly feeds the shells rim-end first into a feed tube as a result of the rim being the heavier of the two ends is the subject of the Ransom U.S. Pat. No. 4,455,915. The Ransom hopper has curved interior surfaces which downwardly converge at a feed opening leading below to a vertical feed tube. A transverse bar extending across the hopper and directly over the feed opening prevents shells from dropping open-end first through the feed opening and into the feed tube.
The U.S. Pat. No. 4,651,619 issued to Voecks discloses a shotgun shell reloader device having a hopper into which spent shells are oriented and stacked, and a carousel reel for serial transport of the casings to a dispenser/trip mechanism where they are individually released for convenient manual removal of the shells from the dispenser. The Voecks device is not intended to be an attachment for a shell reloading machine, but rather, an auxiliary tool to provide a steady supply of shells for the easy grasping of a reloading machine operator.
In the art of shotgun shell reloading apparatus, there exists a species of machine that requires spent shells to be fed underneath a sliding plate member carrying a turntable, and not on the top thereof. In this type of machine, the sliding plate member moves by means of a linkage mechanism in an up-and-down reciprocating motion. During its downward stroke, the sliding plate member covers and entraps a spent shotgun shell through an opening and places it in the turntable for successive operations that are to be performed as the machine proceeds. Consequently, the Corcoran invention is not suitable for use with this type of machine, as the Corcoran feed tube device is designed to release shell casings vertically on to the top portion of a turntable or shell holding device. Similarly, the Fullmer, Meacham, and Ransom casing hopper attachments disclose no way of feeding the shells underneath a turntable device, since this type of positioning requires lateral movement of the shell from the bottom of the feed tube to the proper location underneath the sliding plate member.